SINGAPORE - Indoor skydiver Kyra Poh, 16, brought home the silver medal in the solo freestyle open category at the April 17-20 FAI World Indoor Skydiving Championship in Lille, France.

The solo freestyle junior gold medallist at the 2015 and 2017 Worlds elected to compete in the open category in the 2019 edition and lost the gold to Rafael Schwaiger from Germany by 0.1 mark following a jump-off round.

She said: "Though I've started competing in the open category of other events, this championship is the highest level of competition.

"The best flyers in the world were at this competition, including some of my coaches, so I'm very happy to be placed second in the world. I'm glad that I managed to remain calm and had consistent results in every round," added the teenager, who also finished second in the open category of the World Cup of Indoor Skydiving in 2018.

On making the jump to the open category in this competition, Kyra quipped: "Flying isn't just a competition to me. It's my passion, so what matters the most is not what medal I can win, but how far I can push myself in the sport.

"I think it's only right that I push myself to take up a new challenge to see where I'd place when competing with the strongest flyers in the world."

Also, as Team Firefly, Kyra and Choo Yi Xuan, 17, competed in the dynamic two-way event and placed fifth among 22 teams, while Yi Xuan was fourth in the solo freestyle junior category in her debut outing in this event.

On the two-way event, Yi Xuan said: "We could do better... but are glad that our routine scored the highest for technical difficulty. We'll train harder for the next competition."

The competition saw over 300 world-class indoor skydivers from 31 countries compete in five different disciplines.